Reflecting the thoroughly democratic impulses of American politics, precincts were created on the frontier almost as soon as places for receiving votes appeared. These places were often lonely outposts such as houses occupied by men who ran ferries across unfordable rivers, isolated homes for sheep and cattle ranchers, or forts garrisoned by federal troops. Such polling places were often ephemeral because the line of settlement was a rapidly changing social landscape. Local landmarks such as ferries often disappeared as fast as they emerged when the pattern of occupation changed the paths that farmers took to market or the tracks followed by migrating settlers. Homesteaders changed their residences as well. Many were no more than squatters who could not file a claim until the land they cleared and cultivated had been surveyed. With nothing more than their sweat invested in any particular plot, they frequently moved around, searching for the best unoccupied site.

Whatever might be the pattern of occupation when the country was first opened up, the coming of the railroad, with its stations and access to eastern markets, dramatically changed the social topography. Hamlets that had formed at the intersection of dusty roads were suddenly abandoned, replaced by small towns erupting like mushrooms wherever railroad lines happened to cross. In general, the social topography of the frontier was but a great and tentative experiment as men and women, both individually and collectively, responded to constantly evolving economic opportunities.

Many of the earliest landmarks to appear on the western frontier were political in nature.